Udall attack ad group also stirring controversy in Iowa

The group behind a pair of biting ads targeting Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall is also stirring controversy in the presidential caucus in Iowa, using a controversial tactic known as push-polling to boost Republican contender Mike Huckabee even as the tactic is being denounced by Huckabee himself.

That group, known as Common Sense Issues Inc., is a close relative of a network of organizations that have a contentious history as players in several hotly contested races over the last two years, including campaigns in Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Ohio.

Patrick Davis, a Colorado Springs political consultant who is the group's executive director, said the automated messages going out to voters in Iowa this week weren't push polling - telephone messages that are supposed to be legitimate polls but use slanted questions to "push" listeners toward a candidate or issue.

He termed them instead "personalized educational artificial intelligence" calls. And he said his group reserved the right to use them elsewhere, including Colorado.

"What we're doing in Iowa, endorsing a candidate, finding information about issues that are important to our members, and asking questions about individual candidates are the same things that groups like Naral (Pro-Choice America) and the League of Conservation Voters have been doing" since the 1980's, said Davis, naming two left of center issue organizations.

But as the calls went out to voters in Iowa, the candidate they apparently support moved to quickly distance himself. Huckabee's campaign manager called the tactic "counterproductive," while Huckabee said "our campaign has nothing to do with the push polling and I wish they would stop."

The calls tell listeners they are paid for by an organization known as "Trust Huckabee," but that group is under the umbrella of Common Sense Issues and Davis is executive director of both. The two are part of a lineage of organizations that include Common Sense 2006, Common Sense Ohio, Common Sense Tennessee, among others.

Most of the organizations are 501 (c)4 non-profits, which aren't subject to typical campaign finance laws and must act independently of candidates and their campaigns. Another common element is that they appear to share a common core of donors and activists.

"The (donors) aren't identical," Davis said, "but there is overlap."

One of those supporters is Harold Swift, an Ohio executive for Procter & Gamble. When Swift was the executive director of Common Sense 2006, the group was the subject of a law suit by the Ohio Democratic Party alleging that the group was unfairly hiding its donor base in financial disclosures.

Common Sense 2006 reported that it had raised more than $1.5 million, money it used on radio and television ads during the 2006 Ohio governor's race. In financial disclosure, the group said all the money came from a single donor, a sister group called Common Sense Ohio - a tactic, Ohio Democrats claimed, that hid the original donors.

But it's the network's reliance on push polls that has continually raised the ire of party candidates - just as often those the group apparently supports.

Davis said the polls are used to both educate listeners but also gather information for the group itself. Each listener gets a slightly different experience based on the answers they give to initial questions.

But critics, including many Republicans, say the calls are thinly veiled attack ads. In last year's contentious senate race in Montana, the Great Falls Tribune reported that one of the polls conducted by Common Sense 2006 asked: "Does knowing that organic farmer Jon Tester voted for nearly half a billion dollars in tax increases and refuses to sign a no-new-taxes pledge, and that Conrad Burns has never voted for a single tax increase, make you even more favorable to Conrad Burns?"

The poll was denounced by both candidates, the Democrat Tester and the Republican Burns.

Davis said that so far this year, the group has been active in South Dakota and Montana, as well as Colorado and Iowa.

Michael Riley: 303-954-1614 or mriley@denverpost.com.

Click on the links below to view the two anti-Udall attack ads:

The first ad: "Department of Peace"

The second ad: "Cuban Hero"

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